US claims of Cuba’s ‘unique threat’ jar with reality of hunger and blackouts

State department’s 100-page report is latest push in Trump administration campaign to bring down government The US government’s latest allegations that Cuba is behind “many of the most significant upheavals in recent American political history” and that its leaders pose “a unique threat to American homeland security” have come as startling revelations to those living under the six-month-long US oil blockade in Havana, where desperate people search through piles of uncollected rubbish for food, or else swelter at home in 24-hour-plus blackouts. The unsigned 100-page report, Cuba: Capital of 21st-Century Communism, published by the US state department on Monday, blames Havana for everything from “the George Floyd riots to the rise of antifa to the explosion of pro-terrorist activism on American college campuses”. It is the latest push in a maximum-pressure campaign to bring down the island’s government that began with the abduction of Nicolás Maduro, the president of Cuba’s ally Venezuela, on 3 January. Since then, Cuba has been brought to a standstill by the oil blockade, sanctions on foreign businesses and threats of a military intervention. It also seems to be